Age of the Universe: What Are the Biblical Limits? Chapter Summaries

The Age of the Universe: What are the Biblical Limits?

The image on front cover depicts submerged land formations and a cloud of thick darkness preventing all light from reaching the ocean surface, perhaps for millions or billions of years, until it is cleared to translucence by God on the first day.

Author’s Preface – The preface explores the harmony between science and the Bible. It has been included in its entirety along with Chapter 1.

Chapter Two: Hazards in Bible Interpretation – enumerates 10 interpretive pitfalls including the hazard of human persuasion and social pressure; the hazard of eisegesis; the hazard of ignoring simple hermeneutics; the hazard of a faulty paradigm.

Chapter Three: Four Foundational Imperatives – establishes some important basic concepts including a discussion of day four, (And God made two great lights and the stars also) and Exodus 20:11 (For in six days the Lord made the heavens, the earth and the sea and all that are in them).

Chapter Five: Creation Passages Illustrated With Known Astronomical Features – compares bodies in the present solar system with the description of earth in Genesis 1:2 – an illuminating exercise.

Chapter Six: Needless Obstacles to Creation Science – complains of obstructions to the creationist message erected by young universe dogmatism.

Chapter Seven: Relativism Questioned For Its Biblical Basis – critiques Dr. Russell Humphreys’ conjecture of a relativistic explanation of light from distant galaxies, not from an astro-physical view but from an exegetical perspective.

Chapter Eight: Objections To Undefined Age Answered – provides rebuttals to objections attempted against the biosphere interpretation promoted by this book.

Chapter Ten: Closing Thoughts And Summary – summarizes the salient points of the body of work.

The book also contains a bibliography, indexes and several helpful appendices including a creation story version for kindergarten age. One of the strong indicators of the validity of any interpretation is shown if the Bible can be told simply to any child and easily understood by them just as it is written, while being perfectly valid as an adult version. But the translation used for children must match the original sense fairly – without conformity to an historical precedent and with nothing slanted to suit a favored interpretation.